The Face of Burma 2005, Aung Din

The Faces of Burma 2005

By The Irrawaddy
December 2005
http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=5284&z=102



Aung Din [Exiled Activist]

When Burmese opposition groups claim that the country’s ruling junta holds its population of some 54 million as hostages, skeptics may dismiss it as little more than exaggerated rhetoric. For Aung Din, a former political prisoner and co-founder of a Washington-based lobby group, the claim carries more weight; particularly after hearing the news that the junta had arrested every member of his family, except his octogenarian grandfather.

In the aftermath of deadly bomb attacks in Rangoon last May, the government—having no clues to the identities of the bombers—began interrogating the families of exiled dissidents who were outspoken critics of the military government. Aung Din’s family quickly became targets of Burma’s revamped intelligence agency, which detained his mother, sister and brother in an undisclosed location for several days. They were later released after foreign media organizations reported on the arrests.

According to information received by The Irrawaddy, members of Burma’s thuggish Union Solidarity and Development Association distributed posters with Aung Din’s picture throughout Rangoon, identifying him as a suspect in the bomb attacks. The posters also included the names of his family members, who were thus implicated with Aung Din as suspects without any supporting evidence. As a result, their safety—as well as their reputations—was put at considerable risk

“I felt so bad for my family members,” said Aung Din, the policy director at US Campaign for Burma. “But I hope they would understand that I never get involved in violent activities. This is the military’s hostage-taking harassment.” Given his past affiliations in Burma, it is not surprising that the junta has targeted him. Now in his early 40s, Aung Din was once a student union leader and colleague of prominent student leader Min Ko Naing during the 1988 uprising.

Aung Din was arrested in early 1989 and spent more than four years in prison. Following his release in 1993, he completed his studies in engineering and left Burma. He spent several years in Singapore before moving to the Thai-Burma border in 2000 to join the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. A year later, he arrived in the United States to work with the Free Burma Coalition.

A dispute with FBC founder Dr Zarni over the group’s policy on Burma led Aung Din and American activist Jeremy Woodrum to leave the group in 2003 and form their own organization, the US Campaign for Burma. Zarni would later reverse his previous position on Burma by coming out against economic sanctions, criticizing democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and traveling to Rangoon to meet with the country’s ruling generals.

USCB efforts—particularly its international campaign to celebrate Suu Kyi’s 60th birthday—have demonstrated how coordinated action around the world can make the Burmese junta vulnerable and focus media attention on opposition activities. Aung Din, considered by many to have close ties with the political establishment in Washington, often appears on short wave radio broadcasts. While some critics have branded him a hardliner, Aung Din says that he is simply a “principled activist” working in exile for the benefit of the opposition movement in Burma.